Google challenges OpenAI’s calls for government A.I. czar
Kent Walker speaks at a “Grow with Google” launch event in Cleveland.
via Google
Google and OpenAI, two U.S. leaders in artificial intelligence, have opposing ideas about how the technology should be regulated by the government, a new filing reveals.
Google on Monday submitted a comment in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s request about how to consider AI accountability at a time of rapidly advancing technology, The Washington Post first reported. Google is one of the leading developers of generative AI with its chatbot Bard, alongside Microsoft-backed OpenAI with its ChatGPT bot.
While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman touted the idea of a new government agency focused on AI to deal with its complexities and license the technology, Google in its filing said it preferred a “multi-layered, multi-stakeholder approach to AI governance.”
“At the national level, we support a hub-and-spoke approach — with a central agency like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) informing sectoral regulators overseeing AI implementation — rather than a ‘Department of AI,'” Google wrote in its filing. “AI will present unique issues in financial services, health care, and other regulated industries and issue areas that will benefit from the expertise of regulators with experience in those sectors — which works better than a new regulatory agency promulgating and implementing upstream rules that are not adaptable to the diverse contexts in which AI is deployed.”
Others in the AI space, including researchers, have expressed similar opinions, saying government regulation of AI may be a better way to protect marginalized communities — despite OpenAI’s argument that technology is advancing too quickly for such an approach.
“The problem I see with the ‘FDA for AI’ model of regulation is that it posits that AI needs to be regulated separately from other things,” Emily M. Bender, professor and director of the University of Washington’s Computational Linguistics Laboratory, posted on Twitter. “I fully agree that so-called ‘AI’ systems shouldn’t be deployed without some kind of certification process first. But that process should depend on what the system is for. … Existing regulatory agencies should maintain their jurisdiction. And assert it.”
That stands in contrast to OpenAI and Microsoft’s preference for a more centralized regulatory model. Microsoft President Brad Smith has said he supports a new government agency to regulate AI, and OpenAI founders Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever have publicly expressed their vision for regulating AI in similar ways to nuclear energy, under a global AI regulatory body akin to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The OpenAI execs wrote in a blog post that “any effort above a certain capability (or resources like compute) threshold will need to be subject to an international authority that can inspect systems, require audits, test for compliance with safety standards [and] place restrictions on degrees of deployment and levels of security.”
In an interview with the Post, Google President of Global Affairs Kent Walker said he’s “not opposed” to the idea of a new regulator to oversee the licensing of large language models, but said the government should look “more holistically” at the technology. And NIST, he said, is already well positioned to take the lead.
Google and Microsoft’s seemingly opposite viewpoints on regulation indicate a growing debate in the AI space, one that goes far beyond how much the tech should be regulated and into how the organizational logistics should work.
“There is this question of should there be a new agency specifically for AI or not?” Helen Toner, a director at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told CNBC, adding, “Should you be handling this with existing regulatory authorities that work in specific sectors, or should there be something centralized for all kinds of AI?”
Microsoft declined to comment and OpenAI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
WATCH: Microsoft releases another wave of A.I. features as race with Google heats up
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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